


W

by slire



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: (past) bullying, Dark John, Drug Use, Experimental Style, Explicit Sexual Content, Gore, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Manipulation, Murder, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-04-14
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:46:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 15,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1420180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John disappears, bombs go off in London, and the name MORAN keeps reappearing. Sherlock wasn't the only one who fell that day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. marche funèbre

**Author's Note:**

> This, like all my other works, is experimental. This time it's psychological horror I'm having a go at, and exploring Sherlock Holmes at his worst facing off against an unhinged version of Moran.
> 
> Looking for critique on my psychological profiling. English is a second language.

"Honestly, Mother," he says tiredly, "when was the last time you saw him wearing white?"

It is something Mycroft Holmes never thought he'd be confronted by: Picking out the clothes for Sherlock to wear during his funeral.

"Then how about something blue? Yes... How about this one? Such a pretty royal blue..."

There's a red mark on his cheek because he's slept with his face in his hand on the car trip there. He's unshaven and there's sleep in the corners of his eyes, dressed in a suit two sizes too small (but Mother insisted).

"I'd like to see him one last time," she whispers. She wears her gloom like a dark dress. She looks tinier in it than anything else—especially when standing in Sherlock's old room. "Do you think that'd be alright?"

"I don't think so. Seeing him... broken like that... It wouldn't be good for you." Mycroft remembers the pictures in the newspaper. Fake or not, god, there'd been so much blood. "I'm sorry."

She nods and hugs the shirt to her chest. Mycroft regards her, a woman with wrinkles that mark her like a road map; smiled too much here, worried way too much there. She lives a small and ordinary life, squeezed between needlepoint and porcelain figures, dusted lovingly every Sunday afternoon.

The house is old and creaking; there lurks memories behind every door.

"You always fought when you were children."

(It evokes memories...

Constantly watching out for him, holding his hand whenever his thoughts became too loud. Attending bruises after another bullying incident. Watching his grades fall when bitterness and boredom ensnared him. Finding him at an abandoned warehouse full of other addicts like him, drugged half to death, unaware that this would happen countless more times. Holding his hand again—but this time as he puked his guts out in a public bathroom. Following him in and out of institutions as he scared away doctors and shrinks. Guiding him back to life. Feeling a strange sense of happiness as Sherlock declared him his archenemy.

Somehow it felt better than when his little brother had called him a worthless piece of shit.)

"Always," Mycroft says softly.

"I remember when you didn't. When you both were very young, you used to sneak into Father's study and play a game with the maps there."

They'd stretch the old maps across the floor, smoothing out ragged edges.  _The world beneath their feet,_  he would declare and laugh. The study was filled with antique oil lamps that cast shadows over the world, deepening valleys and stretching hills. Then they'd begin.

"Where are you now?" Mycroft asks softly, remembering.

"Yes, that was the name of the game. Maybe he'd say to the west for you, beyond the grasslands and beside the river. Or maybe he'd say to the east for you, on a great pirate ship in the ocean, returning home."

Tears fall to the floor.

"I'm sorry," she says, wiping them with a hand chief. "It used to be his favourite game."

_'He has a new one, these days.'_ He lays his hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry too, Mother."

.

.

"...Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."

It is a quiet affair, attended only by family.

"...in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection into eternal life."

From an aerial viewpoint, the funeral consists of a dozen umbrellas, a soaked priest with a black book, and a coffin being lowered into the ground. This fake burial is soon over with.

Then why this rotten feeling?

The coffin is empty.

Mycroft strands a distance from the rest (from normality). He prefers solitude when dealing with conflicting emotions, and does not wish to conjure up more sadness. He feels terribly old, like a giant weight rests on his shoulders.

When he thinks Sherlock, two images pop up in his head. One is of a child with hair like soot and eyes full of fear and wonder. The other is a lanky man with gnarled teeth and sunken in cheeks. His little brother—the child—is dead. Perhaps he committed suicide because of the bullying. Perhaps he died from an overdose. Or maybe a case killed him, or Moriarty, or loneliness.

He'd watched Sherlock build a brick wall around himself. It is a grand construction with a drawbridge, watch towers and gun slits, keeping real and imaginary enemies away. On each brick there is written a defeat, but they are turned inwards so only he can read them. He is a perfectionist and so the wall is entirely without weakness. It serves its purpose, and makes sure no enemy may find vulnerability. Nobody else either.

Nobody.

Mycroft looks away from the coffin he knows to be empty, and looks to the shadow atop of the hill.

John Watson.

He was not allowed to know. But he was not allowed to attend the funeral, either.

Mycroft knits his eyebrows. Even from afar, there was something with John's expression that he could not put his finger on.

The shadow on top of the hill turns and leaves.

Ah. He must've been wrong.

Mycroft sighs. "Where are you now, Sherlock?"

.

.

_Where are you now?_

In a graveyard, contemplating dead things, soaking wet from English rain.

.

.

_Where are you now?_

Across the ocean, somewhere icy and mountainous, busy erasing the past.

.

.

_Where are you now?_

In bed, clutching the remains of not-really-a-love-affair, twisting into something terrible.

.

.

_Where are you now?_

Looking up towards the sky, thinking to himself that this is only the beginning.

Laughing.


	2. the second fall (viewed through the five stages of grief)

_"And so I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."_

— Poe

.

.

He recalls writing an assignment on the Kübler Ross model—or more commonly known as the five stages of grief—in the study halls, nodding and thinking he understood. He'd gotten an A. It seems like another world; a landscape cut from old film stock, grainy and washed out, high contrast, unreal.

The experience is quite different from mere book-learning. Knowledge shrivels up. Pages, burning.

.

.

**DENIAL**

"He's not dead."

_"John."_

"No, really, he's not. Can't be." His gloves curl, creaking. Yet there is hollowness in his words, like that of memorized lies. "No. I won't believe it. He's too clever. He'd outwit Death himself."

_"Brains are nothing when splattered on the pavement."_  Human language rots on John's tongue. Mycroft's tone softens,  _"John. Please. I despair knowing—"_

"Despair," he snarls, jaw set so tight he might have swallowed worlds. "Despair is washing blood of your hands, watching it spiral down the drain and realizing that it's the last you'll see of him."

" _John_." Mycroft repeats. John waits for him to say anything, anything at all. But there is nothing to say. So John hangs up.

This is the last time he talks to a person. The phone falls to the floor. He is sick of hollow condolences and pity.

He remembers the words of an army acquaintance; a harelipped lieutenant with alcohol issues.  _"Defeat your monsters or become them."_ Shortly after, he'd died of liver cancer.

So John wraps his emotion into a glass jar, screws the lid on tight and throws it into a dark corner of his mind, praying what's inside will never get out.

The apartment is a prison. An isolated, old box. He becomes aware of how lonely he really is. They left the scarf with him. Another memory to add to his collection, to cling to during the nights. Existence has become a chore. John drags himself back and forth from the bedroom, the bathroom, and the living room, living on noodles and gruel and shabby takeaway shit (nothing Chinese, though). Sometimes he throws things behind his back, expecting someone to catch them. He refuses to talk with Mrs. Hudson face to face. She doesn't have the heart to throw him out and he uses it, selfishly.

That is the price to pay when one chooses to live only in one's memories. Perhaps there is a clue among them. He fears that the day he'll leave the apartment, Sherlock will return and ask  _why didn't you wait for me_?

The weeks pass in a haze. He'd die to feel something.

"Just one more miracle," he mutters to himself. The next day, a bird flies onto the window and dies. The walls close in on him and he feels ill. John feels the sensation of some great ideal slowly crumbling within himself. A little death. A slowly hemorrhaging wound.

The thing in the jar grows; a hairy black thing with sharp teeth and staring eyes.

And John?

He feels something.

.

.

**ANGER**

He looks at his reflection.

The man in the mirror is thin and gaunt. His skin is pale, glowing faintly white in the moonlit room. Thin fingers twitch slightly as he unwraps his arms from around his body. He's lost a lot of weight. Every breath he takes makes his entire body shake. The worst part is the man's face. His hair is messy and dull. Thin lips are slightly parted, and his cheeks are hollow. His eyes are dead. The fire was extinguished by the darkness.

He touches the mirror. His fingers curl into a fist.

He smashes it. Again and again and again.

(Smashing himself until he becomes whole—)

The jar cracks with it.

The destruction follows through the apartment. Shattering porcelain plates. Tearing down wallpaper. Making a mess. He resents his memories; resents Sherlock for leaving. There is guilt there, too, because of the anger, which again makes him angrier, and guiltier. It threatens to drive him insane.

It seems like an endless pool, pouring out of his pores. Temporary structure to the nothingness of loss.

.

.

**BARGAINING**

_What if_.

The two words swell.

Multiple realties, swirling through his head, what if they'd stopped Moriarty sooner, what if John had run faster,  _what if, what if, what if._  He will do anything to not feel the pain from loss.

It takes form of a temporary truce. He goes through the boxes of evidence Sherlock collected, memorizes the numerous criminal networks, and gives himself entirely to deduction. A picture starts unfolding. Upon having learned what he can learn, he remembers Sherlock's words.

_Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

And Sherlock is dead.

.

.

**DEPRESSION**

He lies on the floor of 221B, and asks himself what he'll do tonight.

The answer is:

Search for SHERLOCK.

The name rips through him like an earthquake. John contains himself. Barely.

Daylight slips through a crack in the Venetian binds. Dust glitters in the rays of light. He avoids them like the plague—he feels uncomfortable in anything other than darkness.

Post-bargaining, realizing the futility of it all, the mind moves to the present. The feelings return, deeper this time, unable to disguise themselves as rage or hope. Sadness. Black, black, black. He withdraws from life and into a fog of intense sadness, wondering, perhaps, if there is any point to it all. The loss settles in his soul, triggered by a deep understanding.

It is a cleansing process, too. Drenching him. He cannot escape.

But instead of feeling cleansed, he feels dead.

The thing from the jar, however, is alive and well. It peers out of John's eyes and twists his mouth into a horrible grin.

_'Defeat your monsters or become them.'_

.

.

**A—**

( _Not everyone gets to this stage_ , John had written.  _Everybody grieves differently, and some deaths are so sudden that their close ones are stuck in the first stage forever, isolating themselves from truth._

When he'd be a doctor, he thought, he'd try and spare as many people as possible from a fate like that.)

.

.

**VENGEANCE**

The gun fits him as if connected to his hand.

John leaves 221 Baker Street and does not look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that as well as being a character study, this story is also a study of emotion itself.


	3. when heartbreak leaks

_"You know it's true; nobody ever really quits. A smoker's a smoker when the chips are down... And your chips are down."_

— Jackie Boy,  _Sin City_

.

.

A phone call, the transmitter in situated in a suite in London, and receiver somewhere mountainous and icy, static cracking like an old vinyl player:

_"How fares your work?"_

_"Fine."_

_"And how about yourself? Not knee deep in dead bodies, I presume?"_

_"How is he?"_

_"Well, he's not taking it well. He's shutting himself in, and refusing help."_

_"I see. Did you invite him to my funeral?"_

_"No, I didn't, as per your instructions."_

_"Good. He'd suspect something."_

_"There are other ways, you know. This criminal cleansing of yours is not only insane, but_ slow _. Moriarty's dirty fingers have touched every criminal association there is. Removing those stains will take years, if not decades."_

_"I'm not eight years old anymore. I know—"_

_"Everything but the human mind. You're lying to yourself if you think you're the only one who's hurting."_

_"I'm hanging up now. Goodbye, Mycroft."_

.

.

(November is an old woman whose only lover, the Sun, left her. She pulled a grey dress over her bony shoulders, and tore out the wilting flowers in her hair with wrists like tiny branches. November is cold and bitter, and will not let you exhale without warning.)

Their breaths come out in white, puffy clouds. The snow creaks underneath their boots, like the wooden floorboards at his childhood home. But home is far away, and he is not a child anymore. Instead, he prefers to think of himself as a machine. A machine has a set of instructions installed, using only logic and calculation.

Seven men.

A seller, a handler, an observer, three bodyguards, and himself. He stands 5 meters away, as permitted. They are here to make a deal. He is the buyer. All carry weapons, although it is not allowed.

"This is far enough out in the wilderness," the observer says in English, comfortable and carefree in his own environment. "Let us begin."

The seller steps forth while the handler presents a leather suitcase, kneeling in front of Sherlock.

"You wished for information. We have it. Documented conversations, recorded phone calls, photos of the involved... All this can be yours, so that you can continue your hunt. For a prize, of course."

"Of course."

"We are glad you understand." The seller smirks. "Now present your part of the deal."

Had he remained perfectly silent, this might've gone easier.

But Sherlock is a proud one.

"Moriarty."

The reaction is instantaneous. The suitcase falls and promptly unlocks, and out flies a hundred paper sheets—blank paper sheets—like milk white butterflies. There never was any information. Of course _._  Inside his pockets, Sherlock's hands curl. The men whip forth their guns.

"How do you know that name?" one demands.

_Wait for it._

"Answer!"

_Wait._

One of them raises his gun.

But Sherlock is faster.

There is a small, insignificant clicking noise.

Like a button being pressed, triggering a bomb Sherlock set up there two days ago.

There is an explosion of fire. Bodyguard 1 and the seller both burn to death, becoming coal black, like from a WWII air raid. The seller's upper body is cooked medium well with his arm propped up at a crooked angle, fingers curled and stiff.

It wasn't snow which had wetted their jackets. It was scent free gasoline, sprayed on their clothes pre departure.

Bodyguard 2's arm burns, giving him approximately 3.5 seconds to shoot the man in the head. "Fuck," is his last word, and ironically, the only English word he knows. What follow is an explosion of blood and skull fragment. A few other bullets are given to the observer, taking out both his legs, and another few to Bodyguard 3. Too bad Sherlock dislodged his gun sling. The handler looks pleadingly up at Sherlock.

Sherlock hesitates.

0.5 seconds.

He hears Mycroft's words in his head,  _"You stupid, stupid boy."_

Out of a sudden, the handler stabs wildly with a bayonet, so Sherlock shoots him. Thrice.

"You cannot trust anyone these days." Sherlock studies his trembling, traitorous hand with eyes full of burst blood vessels. "Not even yourself."

The bloodbath is finally over. Corpses surround him. Sherlock walks towards the body of the observer. His true identity is that of the organizer of this meeting. The other seller was just an actor. Both his legs are useless. He'll never walk again. The government officials will find him, and torture the truth out of him.

A gurgling interrupts him. Behind him lies a survivor of the slaughter with a hole in his belly, scooping his guts back inside, making the snow sorbet. The third bodyguard. He has rat brown hair, a low height and piercing eyes. It reminds Sherlock of someone.

Sherlock watches him for a moment. Then he reaches into his pocket, face unreadable, watching raw terror dawn on the man and—

_Click!_

Lights his lighter.

He smokes frequently now, seldom seen without a cigarette between his lips. He's tried everything from Malboro to Mayfair, and ended up rolling them himself (because he must do  _something_ ), teeth and fingers yellowing as if dipped daily in iodine. Worst thing he got was from a dockworker in Rotterdam, which probably consisted of more excrement than tobacco. He is not a pretty thing; pale, hollow cheeked and scrawny. A tower of bones, a museum of regret.

But he is not cruel.

"Don't worry," he says while texting the health service, exhaling smoke. "It'll take hours for you to die. Just make sure not to let go of your entrails and you'll be fine."

.

.

General Frost rules here, ensuring permafrost and temperatures bellow -30°C. The climate has destroyed many armies—a thin, sickly foreigner is no match.

One can walk the tundra for miles without finding a human habitat. Luckily, Sherlock knows exactly where he's going.

The ramshackle building is lonesome, save from a small town ten miles from there where 70 houses cling together. And because it is Russia, the building is a bar.

The door is kicked open.

The conversations stop for a moment, before resuming. They ask no questions.  _'Bloody smart, these Russians,'_  Sherlock thinks.

"Holmes," a voice greets. It sounds like it was soaked in bourbon, smoked, and driven over by a truck. "Saved you a seat."

"Solovjov."

The man elbowed on the counter is Solovjov, better known by the initial S. World famous smuggler and wanted in 32 countries. He's the one who got Sherlock into Russia, and also his ticket out.

Sherlock goes to join him. On the other side of the counter, the barkeeper waits expectantly. Sherlock orders tea.

"You got blood all over ya," Solovjov notes, nostrils widening, smelling violence. "And it sure ain't yours."

"It was a stomach wound. He'll live."

"Oh oh  _oh_ , you really hated the shithead. Shooting someone in the stomach gives the most painful death possible. The intestines untangle, stomach acid rise, the organs corrode." Sherlock knows this. "And he dies like that, slowly, painfully, begging for death. Beautiful, really."

"I contacted the health services.  _He'll live_."

"Hope is a dangerous thing, friend. A great evil, actually. It can make you go crazy."

The barkeeper pours tea into a small, cracked cup. Then he gradually adds rye whiskey. The winter wind howls past the building, licking into the crevices in the windows the landlord ought to do something about. It whines and whimpers to be let in. The barkeeper adds whiskey to the cup until the cup is nothing but whiskey.

Sherlock drinks his cup of whiskey.

"I know what makes us different from the animals."

"Intelligence."

Chuckles, dark and sharp.

"Awareness."

"How do we know the worm isn't contemplating existence?"

Sherlock can think up about a 46 decent arguments against that statement, backed up by essays and dead philosophers. But then he realizes something. There is no definitive answer—nothing that will be accepted like a password—to the question, because feelings clouds the judgement. Solovjov has decided, and will not be satisfied until Sherlock guesses right. Pathetic.

"...Love."

"No."

"Hairlessness."

"No, not that either."

"Then what?" Sherlock focuses on his cup and its murky contents. He sees himself in it, and so is confronted with ugliness. He believes it's only fair. His work is ugly, after all.

" _Vengeance_." He smiles. "The basic instinct to crush and slaughter our enemies. It can rest for years, waiting, growing in the dark." Solovjov isn't a disloyal man—he's simply not loyal to anyone but himself. Sherlock is aware of this, and respects it.

It is a message.

Sherlock promptly turns and leaves.

"Don't forget to meet at the planned place," Solovjov shouts after him.

.

.

_"Sherlock—"_

_"If you are going to ask about my work, don't bother. I'm leaving the continent in two hours, through a reliable connection."_

_"Sherlock."_

_"Don't worry yourself with petty details, big brother."_

_"Sherlock."_

He finally notices the strain in Mycroft's voice. It makes him halt.

_"It's... John."_

"Go on."

_"He's gone."_


	4. ripples & rustles

The man stands on a rooftop—a rooftop like  _he_  died on—overlooking the empty streets of London. The sun rises behind him, drenching the polluted, ill smelling city in yellow.

He inhales the scent of the upcoming destruction. Lead in the air. Bombs in the offices, in the cars, in the cash registers. Hatred in his heart. He is an artist and the world is his stage.

He looks at his clock. 10:59. One of the busiest times in the day. He puts earplugs in his ear and clicks his iPod on. Like a conductor, he holds out his arms, ready to manage an orchestra.

The Ride of The Valkyries begins to play.

Moving his arms to the violins and trumpets, he spreads them out as the more intense part begins.

An office explodes.

(The music blocks out the screams.)

He moves his hands again with rhythmical, gentle motions. Yet there is cruelty in his little smile, pure malevolence of the bloodthirsty bliss of the situation. It isn't random. It's perfectly planned out. No more bloodshed than absolutely necessary. A master of the art would admire the cleanliness of it all.

The explosions go off one by one. Rarely in pairs. The people beneath scatter about. He does not mind them. In masses, they are unimportant. It is certain individuals he is after.

A list of names.

A list of those who betrayed him and—

His thoughts stop, whirl, and settle down.

"I will have my vengeance," he whispers. "I must."

.

.

This one told a detail to the officials.

The woman isn't very important. But in the great scheme of things, everyone is worth something. She sits at her desk near the window, head filled with mundane things like  _what are we going to have for dinner_  and  _I should hire a new secretary_.

And now she is over.

.

.

This one delivered a message.

He is barely seventeen, riding a bike over to his job as a barista. Sweat makes the shirt stick to his back, but he still smiles. He's stayed on the good side of the law for two months now. "Good," he tells his mirror each morning, "You're doing good." The cash register explodes.

And now he is over.

.

.

This one couldn't keep to himself.

He attended the last support group meeting two weeks ago. He feels it. It grows inside his chest, and whenever he closes his eyes he sees the man in a pool of blood and staring, black eyes.

And now he is over.

.

.

This one watched when she shouldn't have.

Her almond eyes are always wide and unblinking. Shoulders, stiff. Angst finally pours out of her when she accepts coffee from a handsome co-worker. He tells her he's going to get some more sugar for her. He calls her sweet. And then he's gone.

And now she is over.

.

.

This one was paid not to help.

It is a slow day. Not a lot of customers. A man passes her door less apartment and she lifts her skirt, invitingly. He gawks in repulsion. She is bloated with disease. One of them is called kindness. She collects stray animals. One of them has a strange stomach pain, and she soothes it, stroking its fur.

And now she is over.

.

.

The list stretches on, but the result is the same.

Death, death, death.

Odd, how fickle they become. No longer individuals. Instead, burned, nameless bodies. A black blob of dead cells. They all crack into pieces of charred meat. Pieces of error.

 _'Almost like poetry,'_  the man on the roof thinks. He remembers their names. He will remember them always.

He clicks in a number on the phone. Without waiting for a response, he says, "I know who you are. And I want all the survivors in within three days. You'll know what I'm talking about. The sum will be unimaginable, even for your kin."

He clicks the phone off, and exhales.

.

.

(At the exact same moment—)

Sherlock Holmes steps off the plane and inhales.

It rains heavily. Wet pavement. Underneath the private airport the ground cracks and swells, as if to welcome him and consume him and never let him go.  _You are mine_ , London says inside his head,  _and you will never quite leave_. Sometimes he imagines London as a big head, and Sherlock Homes is just an idea that stuck.

Sherlock hasn't even got the time to reunite with London.

"Sherlock."

As to extract silent vengeance upon his brother, Sherlock sets his piercing eyes on him and drinks in all the faults. The wrinkled face. Worried too much. Always. Had them even when he was 18, the poor sod. The cane. Thinks it makes him cooler when in reality it makes him appear like a twat. The protruding pot belly. He always took five spoons of sugar, and no milk or lemon. Was it too fill up the sweetness he lacked in his life?

"Mycroft." Distaste colours his voice. He pulls the scarf tighter around his neck, as if to choke himself. "You are disturbing me. I need to breathe in—"

"Breathe later. There have been complications. Bombs. London."

Sherlock wants a cigarette. He knows Mycroft always carries them around, but is too prideful to ask. He is too prideful to ask to share Mycroft's umbrella, too.

"Where's John?"

"Bombs, Sherlock."

"Where. Is. John."

Mycroft sighs. "We still haven't found him. No traces. Most of our agents think he's finally found peace and moved out from that godforsaken apartment. To be alone, away from memories. To think, and heal."

"He wouldn't leave without telling me."

And then Mycroft is 17 and Sherlock is 10 again, bending down and smirking at him. He is so close that Sherlock can smell the coffee he had for breakfast.

"He thinks you're dead, darling brother. Dead. Buried. He saw you  _fall_."

A phone rings.

"Excuse me, I need to take this." Mycroft smiles pleasantly as if nothing has happened, but it drops as soon he hears what the caller has to say. "Oh dear. They're killing the survivors."

"Who are?"

"A band of mercenaries. Whoever was behind the bombings want to make sure the intended victims stay victims. Dreadful business." He repeats the last phrase again and again, shaking his head.

Dreadful.

Business.

The last word strikes a cord in Sherlock.

"Where?"

.

.

He arrives in an aftermath of chaos.

Dead bodies everywhere.

Ambulances stand there, abandoned, sirens still wailing. The area has been evacuated.

The bodyguard Mycroft forced him to bring is in his heels as soon as he enters the streets. Sherlock can't be bothered to remember his name. Jacob something. Bodyguards are like children; they should be seen, not heard. Mycroft brought him just to be a bastard, no doubt.

There is blood in the streets, running in-between the cracks. Little rivers of red. The corpses are pumped full of bullet holes. Whoever did this slaughter did so with calm precision. There are footprints in the blood, too close for them to have run. The mercenaries had walked with the knowledge that their targets would not escape.

Little by little, police cars arrive. Sherlock acted as a test. He's still alive.

He stands perfectly still while policemen enter the scene. They look for survivors. A forensic expert sits against an ambulance, coughing. He's pale. Losing blood. Stares in front of him, silent, as if unsure how to deal with the situation.

The police do not try to coax him out of the panicked state, instead silently focusing on his wounds. Sherlock isn't quite so... weak. Two bullets. Left knee.  _'He'll live.'_

He sits down beside the man. "Where did they go?"

"Mr. Holmes, have you seen the state of this man?""

"Mr. Officer, have you seen the state of the corpses? Those who did it are still out there. Now, Mr..." Noah Boyle, his name tag says, "Boyle, where. Did. They. Go."

A tremble goes through the man.

He raises a finger. Points to the big mansion on the left of them. It is a grand structure. Old and embrowned. The architecture speaks of the Victorian age. They all turn to it, and as on cue, a person on the second floor presses its gawking, pink face against the window.

Pink becomes red as the head explodes. A message.

The policemen hide behind their cars. The bodyguard, too.

"They're not out after you," Sherlock says calmly. "They have murdered no one who isn't directly involved." He finds a sleeping dart in the neck on another member of the health service.

He imagines entering an ambulance, pushing people aside and killing the person still on the operating table. Precise. Clean. Effective.

Sherlock heads for the building.

The bodyguard grabs his shoulder. "Your brother..." he trails off.

"Don't touch me," Sherlock hisses, and continues.

When he opens the mighty oak door, blood runs down the stairs.

(He is getting really sick of all the blood.)

Dust, everywhere. Golden in the rays of light.

He coughs.

More footprints. More corpses. Some clutch each other for comforts. Others lie in an indoor marble fountain under the stairwell, facing facedown in murky water.

One of them crawls towards him, legs blown off, and stretches out a hand for help. The expression is painted with despair. And then she's over.

Sherlock steps over her.

 _Have you missed me?_  London asks.

Sherlock thinks: I must become a machine.

He corrects himself: I am a machine.

The wind howls through the holes in the roof that the landlord ought to do something about. The floorboards creak above him and under him. He hears a scream and a gunshot, coming from the third floor. He hurries through the first and second floor (stepping over corpses) and onto the third.

"...failure. I did not request  _him_  to be here. I want him found and gone."

A pause.

"No, not like that. I need him alive."

Another pause. This one lasted.

And then there are men in the stairwell, looking at him. Spotting him. Raising their guns.

Sherlock falls back. He rolls across the floorboards, swirls of bullet holes following him, like insects in a pond.

(It evokes a childhood memory about pond skaters and how he used to rip their legs off, throw them away, and watch them get eaten by the others.)

An old leather chest becomes his cover. The gunshots light up the room, showing fanatic footprints, in the dust, mostly erased by Sherlock's wiggling. A gloved hand grabs his curls. Rheumy eyes squint, full of dirt and desperation. He sees a figure, standing above him.

And then he releases an atom bomb.

" _John_."

Once again, they meet on a battlefield.

Sherlock is reliant on faces to spot little truths.

John's head is covered in bandages. All that's visible is a single, narrowed eye and half his mouth. He stands completely still for a moment, Sherlock at his feet. A million possibilities run through Sherlock's mind. Is he taking this into his own hands? Revenge? Have they hurt him?

"Idiot," John hisses. His jaw is set so tight it seems like he's swallowed worlds. "You fucking... idiot."

Of all the things he could say to their first meeting, this is what he chooses.

"W—what?"

"You're not supposed to be here," John says. "You're not supposed to be alive."

He turns to men who were shooting at them, who have suddenly gone silent. John raises two guns and shoots them all without wasting bullets. Only an army man could have such accurate precision.

He does not spare a glance to their

"There's a man. The one who did all this. Is he...?"

John pauses. "No. But I won't rest until he is." He marches up to the third floor again.

Sherlock stretches out a hand. "Wait! Why are you doing this?"

On top of the stairs, John tilts his head to the side. "Revenge." He continues running. Sherlock follows, but the former army doctor is faster.

Instead, he finds a man. A mercenary. Dying.

(There is so much death, everywhere.)

"Who was the man you talked to? The first one?"

"There was more than one?" the man asks, smirking at Sherlock's delirium and bad shape.

"Don't mess with me. Tell me who that was."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Sherlock bends down in front of him. "We could do this the easy way. Or the hard way."

No answer.

Sherlock slams his body against the wall.

"Who was it?"

The man coughs.

Sherlock shakes him, livid. " _Who?!_ "

"M—Mo—"

Too slow. He digs his fingers into the bullet wound, shortening the man's life span.

"Aaargh!  _Moran_!"

Sherlock lets him go. He is wild eyed and trembling. "Moran," he says, as it it'd calm him. "Moran." It's a prayer. Or a curse.

Footsteps and raised voices approach from downstairs.

The dying man grabs the end of Sherlock's foot. He whispers something. Sherlock bends down to hear him. And what he says makes shivers run down Sherlock's spine.

"221B."

.

.

221B.

Sherlock stands in front of the old apartment, unsure what he'll find.

He opens the door.


	5. dusted, lovingly

Well.

Sherlock's intent  _was_  to open the door.

It proves difficult. The door looks older. Paint scraped off, numbers rusting, and someone has tagged a big blue cock on the door. Charming. The doorknob is loose. Attempted burglary? He sets the key—a spare key he always carried in his left pocket—and struggles. The whole door seems reluctant, whining and rattling.

Adrenaline and confusion still swells inside him. He does not know what to make of his meeting with John. Wrong, everything was wrong!

Sherlock grits his teeth.

_'Could use a cigarette now.'_

The door finally bulges, nearly going off its hinges, crooked.

And Sherlock is greeted by another world of dust. Most of the furniture is covered by sheets, abandoned. It is so dark, just like in the mansion.

( _"What had you expected?"_ Mycroft asks tiredly in his head,  _"For the world to stand still? You have been dead for two years, Sherlock. For many, you'll remain that way. Even you know that it's not possible to resurrect a decaying corpse."_ )

The realization hurts his head.

He staggers up the stairs like a drunk. The floorboards creak.  _'Home,'_ he thinks, with grief like an old soldier,  _'John.'_ And subconsciously, he begs for wants things to be like they were before.

He enters the second floor.

"John?"

More dust. There was fire here, once, personified and dancing over the furniture with a case on his hands and a solution in his head. That fire is dead, leaving only ash.

"Sherlock."

His voice is a growl, hardened. He stands in the middle of their living room, facing the window. He wears all black. His idiosyncrasies scream military; the attire, the stiff position, the arms folded behind his back. The room is very dark. Curtains, ghosts. John too.

Multiple things fly through Sherlock's head.

[John, declared missing. Doesn't live here. Evaded Mycroft. Meddled with security cameras? What has he been doing, all these months?]

And like that, the computer transmission jars and ends. Emotion was the virus that triggered it. Logic is hard in the company of John.

"Do the neighbours know you're here?" Sherlock finally asks.

"Most of them are dead." John's eyes become half lidded. "What, didn't you know? Did you rush here as soon as you managed to evade the bodyguard? Didn't you even analyze the victims' names?"

"I wanted to see you."

John stills. He abruptly turns. Sherlock had forgotten the face, covered in bandages. The eyes are wide, angry. It was always so hard to determine the colour of them.

[Central heterochromia. An eye condition; pupillary zone has a different colour than the cilliary zone; prevalent in irises low on melanin. The bandages are fresh. Recently changed. Most plausible reason is a burn wound. Clothes, black. Secondhand.]

John reaches into his pocket, scrambling about. Then he pulls forth a photo.

"Do you recognize this man?"

Sherlock bends forth.

[The man in the photo is in his twenties, hair slicked back, unsmiling. It's an old picture. Grainy. The eyes are piercing. He wears a grey shirt, arms folded. Nothing unusual.]

"I don't," he says.

"Really, nothing? You haven't seen him before? Never?"

Sherlock shakes his head. This whole situation is alien to him. He'd prepared himself for John's anger, even tears, but not this cold  _thing_ , reeking of disappointment and hatred.

"This is... This is preposterous. Look at his face Sherlock. Look at it. Are you certain you haven't seen it before?"

"I'm certain."

"You were gone for two years, cleaning Moriarty's trail. I'd thought you'd hear some mention of him, since he is Moriarty's own right hand man. Moran. Sebastian Moran." The name prompts a storm inside Sherlock. "Even I could figure it out."

Many names have been offered when justice—Sherlock—has descended on them. Sherlock digs deep into his brain and scratches his neurons, quickening chemical responses and finding an empty space. It fills up though, quickly. The dying mercenary's expression as he said it. The photo. John's words.

Hate.

That is what John is brimming with.

"You want to kill him," Sherlock states, and there is nothing else to talk about. "How can I help?"

John regards him. But he's not really  _looking_  at Sherlock, merely watching him. There is a wall of iron behind his eyes, and it's so old it's rusting. "...You look like shit. When did you arrive?"

"Three hours ago."

"When did you last sleep?"

"Three nights ago."

John clicks his tongue. "That won't do. That won't do at all. I need you awake for this. You can't help me if you're asleep. I need you to focus. I... I don't think I can do this anymore without you."

It is the first time John has admitted weakness since their reunion.

"I'll find a way," Sherlock says, and he feels exhaustion crash down on him like bricks. Months without proper rest, or proper food. It is with John his humanity shines the most. Ironic, because John seems stripped of his.

"John, I'm—"

"There is more nothing to talk about," John says. "If you're up for it, meet me tonight. I will not wait for you."

Sherlock remembers the last year. A hymn of do this, do that. Action after action. He'd turned himself off and let his mind rule, programmed to do the necessary. He'd surfaced sometimes, smoking. First now did he awake from a sea of information, drawing his first shuddering breath in aeons, looking towards the sky. A reflection.

John.

"Where?"

_Where are you now?_

(That particular memory is unwelcome, just like Sherlock.)

Inside, inside, inside.

John tells him the address, which is stored and downloaded into the machinery of Sherlock. The actual man, however, is elsewhere.

Sherlock thinks: I need to get inside.

John tilts his head to the side. "Get out," he says softly.

It takes Sherlock a second to understand that it's the apartment he's talking about, and he hurries out, John's words echoing in his mind.

.

.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Nervous, oh so very, very nervous, Sherlock rubs his hands together. Clicks open his phone. Double checks the address. Puts it down, checks it again. Hadn't the number been untraceable, he'd called John. He scratches the nicotine patches near his elbow. His coat is too thick, his scarf too tight. Choking.

Sherlock stands on the corner of a building in the suburban area. The roof shields him from the weather.

It doesn't shield him from the people who live here, however.

A man walks over to him, sideways.

[Tiny steps. Too tall to be John. Lanky. An air of quiet confidence.]

"Alright, alright," he mutters, "what did you want again?"

Sherlock tenses up. He has been in situations like these before. "What are you talking about?" he asks without turning his head.

(Why must he be confronted with his past like this?)

The drug dealer pauses.

"Ah, yeah, now I remember you. Struggling to stay awake, huh? This'll help."

[Amphetamine. Central nervous system stimulant. Heavily regulated drug. Used in treatments for ADHD and narcolepsy. Effects: adrenaline rush, burst of energy.]

"I don't..."

"I'll collect the payment in the agreed place."

But the small white plastic bag is already handed to him.

The man is gone.

He looks into the bag. Inside is a small jewel box. He opens it, and discovers that the quality isn't debatable. Little paper wraps. He recognizes them.

[Warning! Side effects include: increased heart rate, irregular blood pressure, a vasovagal response, Raynaud's phenomenon, multiple sexual side effects, pain, acne, blurred vision, excessive grinding of the teeth, profuse sweating, dry mouth, loss of appetite, nausea, reduced seizure threshold, tics, weight loss, alertness, apprehension, concentration, decreased sense of fatigue, mood swings, increased initiative, insomnia or wakefulness, self-confidence, and sociability.]

His phone beeps. The message comes from the secret number.

_60 m east. Hurry. Need you._

The latter part echoes in his head—John is waiting, John needs him.

He mustn't... can't... but he's so  _tired_...

The decision is a hasty one.

He'll need to snort it.

1\. A flat surface. The box. He crouches down and dries over it with his coat arm.

2\. A credit card. Gather it into a pile. Fine crush it the edges. Thicker lines make the amphetamine go past the brain and into the lungs, not sticking into the nose like it should. Narrow lines hit and stick where it should, less wasted and less damage to the lungs.

3\. A pencil. He reaches into his pocket and takes it apart until all that's left is the hollow shaft.

4\. Place the flat surface so that the pencil shaft is horizontal on the book, with a slight downward angle to avoid too much air. One needs to practise to get it right. Good thing Sherlock has practise.

5\. Snort.

[...warning, warning, warning, warning...]

He grits his teeth, awkwardly.

Inhale, exhale.

"John," he mutters, and likes how it rolls on his lips. "John, John, John."

He scurries to the meeting place

John stands on top of some stairs. Smiling.

[...WARNING, WARNING, WARNING—]

"Come," John says, holding out a hand.

The machine cracks and dies.

Sherlock doesn't even notice.

"The game is on."

(Or rather, a hollow replication. But Sherlock doesn't care.)


	6. circle of salt

"...I conclude that we cannot."

Footsteps, down the hall.

"He isn't our responsibility!"

They remind of a march. One two, one two.

"And even if we could—which again, we don't—we have nothing."

The shoes are overpriced. There is a shit stain on the left sole.

"Gentlemen," Mycroft begins, "know that—"

The huge oak doors to Mycroft's office swing open, revealing Sherlock, arms out as if presenting an offer that cannot be refused.

"I'm taking the case."

The men flinch. They wear matching suits and grave expressions. The discussion is dire, and Sherlock's dramatic entrance doesn't fall in well with any of the men. The biscuits on the table are untouched.

Mycroft's eyes become half lidded.

His are the only ones really  _looking_.

Rapid breathing. Tangled hair. A layer of grime, covering his outfit, contrasting the golden cleanliness of Mycroft office. Pupils darted about. He is in constant motion; rubbing his fingers, scratching his arms, occasional trembling, head snapping in different directions, unsmiling and smiling. Anxiety pours out of cracks in his walls, but he isn't empty of it anytime soon.

"This isn't your case to take, brother dear," Mycroft says.

Sherlock's cracked lips curl into something decidedly unhappy.

"And who's gonna stop me? Your miserable excuse for agents?  _You_?"

This is what the men in suits represent to him: stability, rules, control, boring, losing.

(Sherlock despises losing.)

Even the room makes him uncomfortable. His brother's quarters. Large enough to pay respect to his position but they could be bigger. Likewise the furnishing could be more ornate, yet he prefers a minimalistic style. He avoids opulence. That is to say the office isn't devoid of luxury; there is a painting from the Romantic era, a chest table with golden handles, and a glass ashtray with an intricate pattern. Nothing of sentimental value. He passes right into the crowd; into the machinery of society, and Mycroft is terribly aware of it.

Sherlock is a machine, but unlike Mycroft, he isn't connected to a whole. He's a renegade android, unplugged, unable to connect.

"We found Dr. Watson," Mycroft says, and there is a tightness that wasn't there before.

"Brilliant," Sherlock spits sarcastically. "I did it hours ago. And even John Watson knows more than you fools."

Something flashes over Mycroft's face—something buried, and ancient. But then it smoothens, heat lowering, transforming into ice.

Malevolence.

"Gentlemen," he calls without evading his brother's gaze, "step aside please."

"I don't think..." a man trail off.

"Exactly," Mycroft says tiredly. "Step aside, Mr. Johnson. If he wants this case, he'll have to see it for himself."

Behind them is a small screen. It is connected to a Mac, which from what Sherlock can see, is heavily regulated and altered. The screen is black, with a small replay sign, having just played through once.

It's titled  **J_5 . avi**

For some reason, it sends shivers down Sherlock's spine.

"Play it."

Whatever Sherlock prepared himself for, this wasn't it.

The scenery is a bathroom of some sort. The only source of light is a small light bulb. Cracked linoleum. No windows, no furniture, no sound. It has a very sterile feel to it—but it's ruined by a splatter of crimson upon the grey tiles and hooks in the roof, making it appear like an abattoir. Sherlock imagines skinned animal carcasses. There's a dark form on the floor.

The person behind the camera readjusts the lens.

John.

He holds his head high, eyebrows drawn downward, jaw tight. He steels himself, soldier like. There are cuts on his face, thin and wide, a particular one right underneath his left eye, which is swollen, lips also bloated. He neck is purple with bruises. The clothes aren't his own, and hang loosely on his frame. How long has he been there? Impossible to tell. His arms and legs are tied, and the fabric is soaked with blood. Swallowing thickly, he asks something, and Sherlock can read the words  _who_  and  _where_. But there is a futility to it.

( _Where are you now?_ )

It clicks inside Sherlock's head.

The bandages.

The camera jars, and John flinches. There is a brief period of static. Frames, flickering. One is on for about three heartrending seconds in which John's face is contorted into one of pure anguish. Others are extreme closeups. Flash. Mutilated body parts. Flash. A razor, shining. Flash. Widening pools of blood. When the video stops jarring, John faces away, and there is more blood on the wall. He doesn't move. The cameraman is shadowed, moving out of focus. Sherlock sees a gun in the gloved hand.

The unseen cameraman clicks the light off, rendering the room to darkness.

Rendering John to darkness.

**J_5 . avi** ends.

_Would you like to replay?_ hangs in the air like a subtitle.

"How?" Sherlock bites out. He is very pale. It feels like he's going to be sick all over Mycroft's carpet.

"Workers involved in the research yesterday's bombings received it."

"I didn't."

"You were busy chasing ghosts."

Sherlock opens his mouth to retort, but remembers his promise. John had told him—while they ran through the streets and questioned shady people—that he wished to remain dead. What they would do together would not be pretty, and when it was finished, first then could he come out of his hide and  _live_.

"I... I need to go."

He hurries out the way he came like a scared black rat.

A man lays a hand on Mycroft's shoulder. "You did the right thing, showing him. He's probably on his way home to empty his stomach and hopefully any thoughts of taking this case. One shouldn't be involved in cases one has emotion attachments to."

Mycroft says nothing.

.

.

"Why?"

They stand in the abandoned apartment. 112B. Where it began, and where it'll end.

And there is blame, and grief, and rage.

John looks at Sherlock. Each movement and each gesture is so very calculated and tense. Vengeance is his drug; his ideal, his god,  _him_. "Why what?" he asks harshly.

"Why didn't you tell me what was done to you?"

John's eyes widen slightly. Then, after a few moments, they narrow. "It doesn't matter. It's over now."

"I have the right to know, John."

The doctor snarls; a grotesque, inhuman sound like a cornered, abused dog. "You never get anything, do you? It's about  _you_ , Sherlock. It's always been about you. You, you, you, you..." His voice cracks. He shakes his head. "He doesn't care about me, never did, even when I hunted... even when I hunted him. No, it's you, it's always you. Even if I'd slit his throat he'd look at me with boredom." And his eyes wander, unstable mind drifting. "Therefore, I'm going to kill him. To show him. I'll savour it, killing them one by one, until all that's left is him, alone."

Sherlock thinks: I must reach him.

(—before he disappears forever out of my grasp silver ribbons flying—)

He holds both hands on John's cheeks, gently cupping his face upwards towards Sherlock.

His logical part screams for information. It cannot function without it.

"It wasn't you who planted those bombs, right?"

John pauses.

He reaches up, grabs a piece of used bandage, and rips it off. A fourth of his face is revealed—the upper, left half, revealing the scar underneath the eye, and sickly skin. But it is John, even as a distorted, not-quite-right mirror.

Too much information.

Overload.

He cannot deal.

Cannot.

"I'm so sorry."

John expression's twists. That was not the correct response. "Get out Holmes," he says dangerously.

"John I—"

"Get. Out."

"Please, listen to—"

" _GET OUT_! Get out, get out, get out..." he repeats it, pushing Sherlock away. Sherlock feels his heart twists and awkwardly runs out, as if it was a monster in his heels.

.

.

Heroin.

Sizzling.

That is the first thing he hears when entering the basement. The woman leading him nearly trips down the stairs; she's a recovered drug user but a current alcoholic, and knows all the dark parts of London. Sherlock does too.

The light reveals several figures sitting on sofas and mattresses. It is very quiet, and the heat is temperate. This place is hosted by Rio—a known name in the underworld—who promises sterile, safe environments for a small price. Being in such a place evokes memories, but he hasn't got time for them. Like a zombie, he does the purchase of the dealer there.

Injection.

The quickest way.

(His machinery mind remains silent.)

He put the desired amount in a spoon. He draws up about an equal amount of water in a syringe, then squirts the water around the pile so it gets all of it. He uses a candle, making sure it won't boil. The powder dissolves into the water, and he moves the spoon and mixes it completely. Small bubbles form at the bottom. Done, he drops a piece of a cigarette filter in and sticks the needle in to suck up the heroin. He pours tap water over the stick of the needle to cool it. He squirts it once, swallowing thickly.

How many years have gone since last time?

Sherlock doesn't remember.

He injects it.

Yes.  _Yes_. Everything becomes fragmented, and slow.

He doesn't know how long he stands there, breathing, before the message comes.

_Need your help. Cab outside._

He doesn't waste a second.

.

.

He doesn't know where he is, but he hears the gunshots before he steps out of the cab and he enters, bloodlust pumping through his veins along with the drug.

There are men there, running.

One of them follows. Set to kill. Sherlock sways, and gets out his gun.

He thinks about John's face.

(which one? all of them)

There is a click.

A gunshot.

A strangled scream.

Sherlock calmly walks towards the lump form, vision blurred, smiling lazily. His head is delightfully silent, and overcome with a sense of calm, all he can hear is his heartbeat.

Increasing.

Who lies on the pavement?

(it isn't Moran)

He stands above the body.

Looks at the eyes.

At the bandaged head.

"J—John?" Sherlock chokes.

The man is still and wide eyed. Sherlock bends down, unsteady, feeling dread consume him. The bullet had hit his arm. He reaches up, and with gentle fingers, lets a hand glide from Sherlock's chest to his neck. To feel the heartbeat. "It's alright," Sherlock whispers, "I'm okay, don't worry, please don't..."

John continues to stare, silent.


	7. the invisible man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just found out that specific words (often formatted or includes odd symbols) delete themselves. Do tell if you see something that's missing.

_"Love leaves a trail of sulphur like some lingering smell. As soon as you meet someone, you smell it. Like when you take a leak, your fingers smell. You have to wash them, two or three times, so you can forget you pissed."_

— Ben,  _Man Bites Dog_  /  _C'est arrivé près de chez vous_

.

.

There's blood, leading from 221B and to a cab outside.

But London works with him today and rain pours from the sky. The driver silently eyes Sherlock counting up 300€ in blood splattered cash. "Think he'll live?" the driver asks.

(John had screamed when they'd lifted him, cursing and spitting and twisting.)

It takes a bit for Sherlock to react. He's trembling, but blinking lazily, "Yes.  _Yes_." The man—or rather, questions—makes him uncomfortable and so he promptly turns, going inside. The blood continues up the stairs. Blood and ash. The second step whines and cracks under his weight. The whole house is rotting. Ghosts under the floorboards. Memories, whispering.

His phone beeps. He picks it up from his pocket, frowning.

The message pops up in the form of a small mp3 file. Nothing else, no words. The number is unknown. The file's name is J_4 . mp3, awakening a slow terror. To not disturb the man upstairs, he uses ear plugs. Only one of them works.

It doesn't lessen his reaction.

Screaming.

John's.

_"No no no please stop this!"_  The splatter of liquid. Blood. Footsteps.  _"Please don't please don't I— Aaargh!"_ A chair, scraping against the floor. More screaming. A great bang. Laughter. Sherlock wants to take it off, but he listens until the end.  _"Sherlock,"_  John weakly calls, sounding like he's drowning in delirium and his own blood.  _"Sherlock..."_

He mutes his phone and goes up, insides swirling.

John lies on the sofa. Or rather, he's sitting up, refusing to relax. The bullet went right through, thank god. A clean wound. No major artilleries. It'd taken quite some time before Sherlock had checked it. Panic and heroin had hindered it.

Sherlock doesn't quite know what to make of it.

Silence resides for a couple of minutes.

"Was it intentional?" John asks.

"What?"

"Did you shoot me because you wanted me to shoot me?"

"No! Of course not, I…"

"You asked me if I planted those bombs. Do you think I did this on purpose?" He gestures to his face, bandages muddy from his collision with the rain licked pavement and red from clutching his wound. "Do you think I did this to myself?"

There it is again.

The sword that slices through Sherlock and kills his brain.

Guilt.

"You wouldn't..."

"I've killed people before, Sherlock. You know that."

"That was a war, John."

"Isn't this one, too? A war against the men who..." He gestures to the two of them.  _...Destroyed us_. "The men I was following, they weren't good men. I ought to track them down again. End them."

Sherlock thinks about John screaming.

"You've lost a lot of blood."

"It doesn't matter."

"Does  _anything_  matter to you?"

John looks straight ahead, avoiding Sherlock. "Revenge does."

"What about the very thing you're avenging?"

"That thing is dead."

Sherlock feels like a ghost. His very presence puts John in constant agony.

(Perhaps something within him died when he fell from that roof.)

"How can I trust you, Sherlock?" John asks. "You shot me. I'm starting to think you want to kill me just to rule out the possibility of your little doctor doing something you can't."

"Of course not! I— I—"

And then John is leaning so close Sherlock can smell blood and hot air.

"What, Sherlock?" he breathes.

[Closeness. Holding your gaze. Dilation of pupils. A pregnant silence. Looking at your lips. Adam's apple bobbing.]

Sherlock doesn't know who moves first.

They kiss.

Quick, harsh, loveless.

It tastes like what could have been fire.

John tears himself away rather quickly. His pupils dart back and forth, not managing to decide which of Sherlock's eyes he'll focus on. "I loved you, once," John says quietly.

The words are so stark they leave Sherlock dumbstruck.

"I want to trust you again," John continues.

"I trust you, at least," Sherlock says.

His phone rings. It is muted, so it vibrates in his pocket.

He hasn't been so happy to see Mycroft's number in his life. Yet he answers with a definitive "I'm busy. Call me—"

_"Sherlock. We need to arrange a meeting. Now."_ A pause. _"It's about_ your _case."_

Sherlock takes one look at John before he replies. "Where do you want to meet?"

.

.

Sherlock knows something is terribly wrong as soon as he steps into the arranged place.

A public restroom. Abandoned. Graffiti on the walls, grime everywhere. Most of the toilets and sinks are smashed. Flies buzz near the flickering lights. The linoleum was white once. Not anymore.

"Of all the places to meet..." Sherlock begins, lip curling in disgust.

Mycroft stood entirely still.

And then Sherlock was 15 again. They'd been in a bathroom like this then, Mycroft's hand on his arm, dragging him through the streets. He hadn't said a word—and Sherlock had never despised his brother's silence as much as then.

Mycroft strides forward with long steps. He places a death grip on Sherlock's face and neck, studying him from all angles. "Dilated pupils. Cold sweat. Constant twitching." Sherlock tries tearing himself away, to no avail. "...Shortened temper. Little brother, you're back on drugs."

He lets go.

Sherlock stumbles backwards.

"This is why you called me here, isn't it? You just like them.  _Bullying_  me. I will not be mocked again. I'm leaving."

"Running again? Is that always how you deal with your issues?"

The time spent with mercenaries, thieves and liars had not helped his social awkwardness.

" _Fuck_  you."

[Emotional overload. Suggested strategy: run run run run.]

"Mother and Father wouldn't want to see you like this."

"Stop it."

"And John? What would he say?"

"Stop." Sherlock shuts his lids tightly. He can't do it anymore. "John is alive," he says finally, "and I have spoken to him."

"You're delusional and drugged. We both know where John is."

The abattoir room.

"Shut up. I've seen him."

"There is no John, Sherlock. He wasn't waiting for you, and he isn't. By all means he's probably dead."

"No. No no no. He's not dead, nor an illusion. I've touched him."  _'Shot him. Kissed him.'_ "We're fighting Moran together now and—"

(So many interruptions. Sherlock feels as if he hasn't finished a sentence in two years.)

"Moran? What have you found out, Sherlock? I have the right to know."

This pisses Sherlock off. He doesn't like how Mycroft uses his name all the time, either. Doesn't like Mycroft at all, actually. "It's my case." Mine, mine, mine. My case, my problems, my life.

"You'd be dead if it weren't for me. Homeless. An addict, scrambling the streets, bloated with disease. You don't see it, do you?

"And I'm invisible to you as well, Mycroft. I'm not your brother. I'm a  _problem_."

"Gifted with such natural intelligence, and yet see nothing. You rot your mind. You're such a stupid, stupid boy."

There it is.

The wall breaks a little.

Sherlock slowly reaches into his pocket, drawing forth tiny white pills. Ritalin. He swallows them, staring at Mycroft the entire time, watching his expression twist into something awful. Something lovely. Unhinged. _'Stop pretending you care,'_ he wants to scream,  _'I'm sick of it.'_

And then Mycroft reaches into his own pocket. A small bottle, which Mycroft removes the top of with his teeth. Murky insides. Titled SYRUP OF IPECAC. Makes one vomit.

"Don't even think—"

Mycroft punches him across the face. It leaves an angry, purple bruise. Where does his strength come from? He shoves him into a nearby stall. With quick movements, the bottle is in his mouth. Sherlock feels vomit collect in his throat. He's twisted around, face held over the repulsive toilet, fingers curling in his hair.

The last time this happened—without the syrup—Mycroft held his hand, stroking his back.

( _"I worry about him."_ That was one of the first and truest things he'd said to John. _"Constantly."_ )

"Out, Sherlock. Get  _it_  out."

"I..." more vomiting "...hate you."

_'That is alright,'_  Mycroft thinks.

"I'm a bloody—" a halt, "...drug addict and I'm still better than you you fat worthless peace of shit. You'll die alone."

Sherlock's malevolent expression twists into a grimace, and he pukes into the toilet; a watery, yellow mass.

_'That is alright, too, little brother.'_

Mycroft sighs and allows Sherlock to throw up until he dry heaves.

His phone rings.

"Hello?"

A pause.

"Oh dear," he says, turning to Sherlock, "the bombing has started again."

.

.

The man lies in the blue bed. The hospital is big and well guarded. But he hasn't felt safe in three years.

Yesterday, he and three others were chased through the streets. They know too much. All of them went to the police, while he checked into the hospital because of the bullet that graced his shoulder.

The nurse—a pleasantly smiling zombie—comes in. She is very pretty. "I have a phone call for you," she says. "It's from Bobby. He's your son, right?"

Bobby? Lil' Bob? He hasn't talked to his son in eight years!

Teary-eyed and tense, he takes the phone in his hand.

"He—Hello?"

(He doesn't know that three others receive a phone call at that exact moment.)

Three.

Two.

_One_.

.

.

.

.

They'll find his burnt remains in the morning, underneath the rubble caused by the explosion.


	8. deathmental

_You once seemed to love_ __  
_the tumbling of infarction_ __  
_the oddments of destruction_ __  
_the effort to stay:_ __  
_a blackmail_ _decay_ _Life lies in your heart like in a coffin_ __  
_Stop faking suffering like a child_ __  
_Bonds of silk and vows of lead weight_ __  
_in rotten milk - this was your feast plate_ _Now all your veins burst_ __  
_all fears and wrongs_ _  
__Hell won't tolerate hymns_

Soap&Skin — DeathMental

.

.

_Sherlock is 16 and Mycroft is 23._

_And Sherlock will remember this always._

_(He will of course attempt to repress it, like he does with all bad things. He divides them into smaller and smaller bundles. Tiny aerosols, poisoning him.)_

_There will be bruises on his neck in the form of a hand and bruises in his mind after his mother and father's gazes._

_He acknowledges them as his parents and has the natural bond of affection with them, but there is nothing apart from that. Nothing. He likes to think he keeps their relationship very professional. Mycroft, however, evokes a different response. After all, it is his hand on Sherlock's neck. He reeks of something ancient, like Destruction._

_Mycroft is home for his Christmas break and their parents prayed for a lovely Christmas Eve where the brother would set their differences aside—but instead Sherlock runs away again and Mycroft has to drag him out from some shithole._

_They want to say something._

_Anything._

_"You should have done this a long time ago," Mycroft says condescendingly to his parents, and he sounds like an adult. He has a giant stick up his arse and when he pulls it out it's only to beat people with it. He pulls Sherlock up the stairs, and their parents say nothing._

_"Let me go!" Sherlock screams, and his tiny lungs wheezes and his shallow bones rattle from abstinences in Mycroft's iron grip. He is so weak, and thin. Much thinner than last time they met, which was a year ago, when his brother helped him empty his guts in a restroom. Sherlock swears on his life that it'll never happen again. "Let me go you son of a bitch!"_

_"Not very flattering when we have the same mother, brother dear," Mycroft drawls, and throws Sherlock into his old childhood room. The walls are blue and the bed is soft. "Go to sleep, Sherlock. I want you to_ sleep _the addiction off."_

_He slams the door shut and locks it._

_Sherlock is on his feet at once. He bangs his tiny little fists against the door, screaming obscurities, hating, hating, hating. It doesn't take long before he starts crying, a scrawny sixteen year old boy, crying for food and comfort and heroin. He calls his parents' names first. "Mommy mommy daddy daddy please help me..." But he is soon calls Mycroft's, knowing he is the real adult. "Big brother, I'm sorry, I won't do it anymore, just please..." No one comes. He's cold and tired and wet from the rain, and smells like overcooked cabbage from the dumpster he dived in trying to escape his brother._

_The worst begins 12 hours after his last dosage._

_He sweats like a pig. Tears come uninvited and his eyes are dry, snot running continuously. The few hours—minutes, mostly—he manages to sleep are plagued with fever dreams. Abstract, hysterical things, making him wake screaming. He whispers heroin in his sleep. The Christmas food on his nightstand taste like ashes in his mouth._

_On his worst, he throws himself against the walls and door until he wears himself out and collapses. He accidently shits himself on the fourth day._

_It goes on like that for a while until the worst has surpassed. It is first when he mostly stays in bed, docile and sickly, he's allowed to go out of his room. His parents set up a replication for Christmas, but they need to open his presents for him. Science sets. Books. Nothing brings him joy. His birthday is on the 6th of January and he doesn't even blow out the candles. He has no friends. Had one—Ill Boy, a philosophy fanatic with Manic Depression. He died of an overdose last year, and he's repressed the memory of waking up to a friend that choked on his own spit._

_They ship him off to an intuition quickly after that and Mycroft still won't look him in the eye._

.

.

Sherlock is 36 and Mycroft is 44.

It is the same ordeal.

Swung into the office, beaten and bloated, landing on all fours on the floor. The door is locked. But Sherlock isn't a little boy anymore. He isn't!

There is a video playing in the background.

_'No no no no no...'_

"You need to get better," Mycroft says from the other side of the door. "You need to focus."

"John is out there!"

"No, little Brother. He's..."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!"

The horrible video plays in the background.

John, sitting there. He looks worse than last time. Pus oozes from his many wounds. It's painful to watch. The bar up at the window tells that the file's name is J_2, which means Mycroft covered one. Where is J_3?

Then he realizes this one has sound.

"Smile for the camera, John," a voice says. Moran? The cameraman hurries over to the half dead army doctor, "John here tried to commit suicide, such a naughty boy!"

John spits blood. "Liar."

The image jars and the screaming begins again.

Someone has cut an M into John's chest.

Sherlock thinks: I need to get out of here.

I need to get out.

[21 possible exit routes—]

Sherlock smashes the chair through the door, breaking it.

_'I am not losing you to that monster again, John.'_

.

.

The man is dressed in clothes similar to Sherlock's. Blue scarf. Black wool coat. He wears a wig, and he has a resigned look about him. Dead eyes.

John holds him at gunpoint. The bandages are back on.

"This is for killing him, isn't it? You blame me."

"No," John says. "This is for killing  _me_."

The last thing the man hears is a click.

.

.

They run, soldiers in a never ending war, the adrenaline as good as any drug.

"John!"

"Sherlock."

They are at the same place where John was shot.

"He said you weren't real."

"I am  _very_  real, Sherlock."

And it is all Sherlock needs to hear. They reunite and Sherlock wraps his arms around him, weeping. John holds him. Holds him like no one did.

The building explodes behind them.

John smiles.

He thinks about lights, flickering.

.

.

(Another video arrives at Sherlock's phone, but he doesn't check it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bedroom scene is inspired by Trainspotting, and the Holmes parents are inspired A Clockwork Orange. Sherlock's responses to withdrawal are researched and realistic.


	9. the second last phone call

_"Sherlock."_

_"Mycroft."_

_"I should have known you'd get out."_

_"It's just another error to add to the list, isn't it?"_

_"I'm not sorry, Sherlock."_

_"Of course you aren't. You hate me."_

_"We've been over this before."_

_"And you keep denying it. You won't touch me. I've seen your face when you look at me. Or rather, how you won't. You turn away, constantly, even when I... even when I..."_

_"You understand everything but emotions, brother dear. Do these claims make you feel better about your actions? Explanations are not excuses."_

_"You despise me."_

_"Go to hell, Sherlock."_

_"Already been there. If it helps, the feeling is mutual. I hate you too. At least I'm honest about it. Is that too much too ask of a man coiled in surveillance wires? Can't you just say it? Three simple words. Please. I just want truth, for once."_

_"..."_

_"Very well. Don't bother to feign worry. We'll catch him. We always do."_

_"Such a stupid boy."_

_"Such a worthless piece of shit."_

.

.

Mycroft stands with the phone in his hand, sighing.

Odd how his brother has gone from a baby—which Mycroft struggles to remember; because he was so  _clean_  back then—to a wrinkled sack of bones and drugs.

He remembers.

.

.

_Sherlock is 16 and Mycroft is 23._

_It's Christmas Eve._

_And Sherlock is crying._

_Mycroft sinks to the floor, back to the door Sherlock hammers against. He feels each weak kick. Each feeble punch. Each echo of "help me, help me—", which burn hot against his skin; frying kisses of failure._

_Sherlock's hands are bruised. Mycroft knows he'd held them too tight. Too angry. Too late._

_Sherlock has grown so thin, so frail. While the weight fell of Sherlock like a waterfall (consisting of drugs and cigarettes and filth), Mycroft became overweight. With slow metabolism, he'd needed to watch his diet. But he didn't have the time. He had schoolwork, a job, chores and an addict brother. More often than not he found himself in greasy fast food joints just to get some quiet. Rather the sizzling of fries than that of heroin._

_Mycroft closes his eyes._

_He's sick of being the big bad wolf because his parents don't understand._

_He's so tired._

_At the Christmas table, Mother and Father avoid what has happened. Sherlock's cries have ceased now—but they can still hear the occasional scream. They pretend it's the wind. She starts talking about when they were little, bringing forth a picture with Mycroft holding a bruised Sherlock's hand like a guard, unsmiling. Mid-story, she breaks down at the table and starts sobbing uncontrollably. Mycroft finishes his meal and excuses himself._

_He goes into his brother's room._

_Sherlock is so small in the big bed. He's as pale as the bed sheets, which are drawn just above his chin. His eyes are wide and staring. Expressionless._

_Mycroft sits by his side, holding Sherlock's hand. They exchange no words._

_In March, they check him into a recovery centre._

_He holds his hand there, too._

_Of all the things, this is what Sherlock chooses to repress._


	10. sex / vengeance

John had wiped over the table with his hand, leaving a clean smear in the dust. He'd opened the window, and Sherlock doesn't feel like the air was choking him anymore. Their apartment is lighter now—but the sunlight from the window only deepened the contrast. It makes kaleidoscope patterns on the floor, blocked momentarily by flying curtains. Insects eat moulded bread and sip curled milk. A feast meal, for those which tends all things rotten!

Sherlock makes them coffee.

John drinks it, even if it'd scalded a normal man's lips.

"You never used to take it black," Sherlock notes, sitting. "Too bitter, you said.

"Bitter, yes." John purses his lips. "It  _is_  bitter. But that's why I like it." He drinks some more. Some of the rot that'd plagued him had withered. Would the madness disappear, now that they neared their goal? "I overheard your argument with Mycroft. Not a pretty thing."

"My relationships are seldom pretty."

John leans back. "You did not tell him about me. I, for once, am glad you kept  _that_  promise, at least." Sherlock shrinks. "Don't fret. I think... I think I can trust you now. I know you have been operating on very little information. I know you so I know it's pretty goddamn hard." Little pieces of John, shining.

"I don't mind it that much. It's nice..."  _'...having a silent brain.'_ "To just trust, I mean. To let go."

"I see. Well, I still think I owe you something. Ask me whatever you feel like, Sherlock."

Sherlock thinks about John, screaming himself hoarse. He will not ask about the torture at the hands of Moran. Instead he regards the half-removed bandages and the distorted features underneath; a memento of his best friend's suffering. He will not ask about that.

"The men we killed. Who were they?"

"People involved. They'd done things... Horrible things, all leading up to your death. They were liars, also. I hate liars. One of them had dressed up as you. I don't know why. I shot him in the head."

"He deserved it. But... how many people have you killed?"

John's expression gains a hard edge, soldier like. "A lot."

Sherlock doesn't want to ask. He really doesn't. But he does, inhales, and speaks.

"Were you involved in the bombings, including the phone ones?"

_**3** _

"Did you buy those mercenaries?"

_**2** _

"Did you do it for me—?"

_**1** _

John blinks hard, grits his teeth, and asks, "Do you love me, Sherlock?"

The question is so unexpected that it breaks Sherlock's world.

Hate, he understands. The intense, burning feeling that twists your chest whenever the name is mentioned. Mycroft has taught him all about that. It mixed so wonderfully in with fear every time Mycroft left him. But love? He knows the definition. But the feeling itself?

He stares at John, wide-eyed and open mouthed.

"Let me rephrase the question. Would you war with me to hell and back? Would you stay with me forever? Would you hurt yourself if it meant that I would live?"

"Yes," Sherlock says. And then, "I love you."

John exhales. Then he looks up.

In a split second, John has leant over the table. There is the collision of lips. The coffee mug tips. Hot coffee (black in the ambient light) spills over the table and drips onto the floor, pooling. John doesn't care. His hands are on Sherlock's shirt and he's forcing the man forward. This is a different kind of war, Sherlock realizes.

"I want to take this to the bedroom."

"I want," Sherlock echoes, but he doesn't say anything more.

John leads them, and Sherlock lets him. The road to the bedroom (hell) is paved with small battles (good intentions) of hands and arms and legs and feet. And most importantly, lips and teeth and tongues. Sherlock thinks of cheesy romance novels he'd sworn he'd never going to think about again. The floorboards under their feet creak. Sherlock is slammed against a wall, head crashing into a picture so it cracks the glass.

John's fingers are leaving blues and purples into his skin. It matches the purple underneath his eyes. Dark circles. They have grown into him and become a part of him.

John digs into the spaces between his jutting ribs and laughs quietly (and it is bitter, bitter like the coffee) as if their existence proves something. Sherlock is aware he looks like a dog that hasn't eaten or had a bath for ages. Ugly, like their relationship. John is muscled and strong. He easily pushes Sherlock into the bedroom. In the brief moment before he hits the bed, he sees ripped wallpaper, a nicely kept bed and sheets on the floor.  _'This has been planned.'_

A strange feeling pools in the bottom of Sherlock's stomach. Is it want? Lust?

"You're a virgin, right?" John asks.

Sherlock nods.

John laughs again.

It makes Sherlock shudder.

John guides him, pressing his back into the mattress. John is on top of him. One second they're kissing, and then John is chewing on his neck, near the pulse vein. Sherlock bites John's shoulder out of shock. It draws both blood and a moan from John. "Fuck, you know what I like." But otherwise he stays very quiet—like a working man, focused in his task.

(And yet... And yet there is something decidedly  _cold_  about all this.)

A hand is suddenly on his crotch, rubbing the area. "Hm. Soft. We gotta do something about that." John unbuttons and unzips every obstacle, expertly handling the limp cock with utmost precision. He has done this before. The focus begins at the shaft, moving up and down with slow, deliberate movements. Sherlock hardens. All he does is gasp, once, leaning his head down. It is then John shifts his focus to the tip, moving his thumb in circles. Teasing him... Testing him? Sherlock moans. Just when Sherlock reaching his peak, John stops all ministrations, drawing away.

He strips Sherlock his clothes, having no time for his own. Trousers, shirt, underwear, socks. Heaps on the floor, forgotten. The room is a bit cold. It numbs the pleasure. His feet are cold, especially. John kisses him before he can complain, flooding his mouth with salvia and blood.

Sherlock's lip is bleeding.

John grabs the back of his skull and pushes him down into the pillow. John looms above him, hands running down to Sherlock's ass. Short nails dig into his thighs. He has an expression made of stone.

( _'Isn't there supposed to be lubrication involved?'_  Sherlock is too afraid to ask. John knows what he's doing.)

There is a little pause. A little quiet before the storms. A little fear before pain.

John needn't say it.  _This will hurt, Sherlock._

It does.

John buries himself deep; giving Sherlock little time to adjust. It is slow at the same time, as if John is thrusting in forever. Sherlock trembles beneath him. Sweat runs down his jaw.

"John," Sherlock grinds out, teeth sliding over each other. He has heard the line "bite the pillow" before, but when he tries to, he starts groaning in pain instead. "J—John... Hurts..."

John abruptly pulls out, making Sherlock make a little "Ghh!" sound in surprise. He shoves Sherlock's body around, making him lie facedown in the bed. Sherlock's bony lower half is pointed upwards, while his chest touches the mattress. John doesn't appear to be afraid that he'll break. Sherlock tries to catch his gaze but John avoids it. _'Ah,'_  Sherlock thinks,  _'I do not deserve it.'_  Is it easier this way?

But it doesn't feel like that when John buries himself a second time.

Sherlock feels as if he's being hollowed out. Emptied, even if he feels unbearably full down there. Will that feeling never subside?

Some flies buzz in the corner of the room.

"Eyes," Sherlock whispers, "I want to see them."

John bends over him, twisting to the side without exiting.

He's removed the bandages.

 **Completely**.

Sherlock's eyes become wide. He doesn't have time to say anything because John is moving, thrusting in and out. The pace is a bit too quick, the grip a bit too tight. Is he bleeding? It all becomes foggy. John starts jerking Sherlock off again, making the detective curl into himself.

Spots appear at the end of his vision. It builds up in his lower belly, much like the strange emotion; an intense heat. It is a secret, how silently he comes. Sherlock near well collapses.

John is saying something but Sherlock can't hear it.

(Why did his brain rustle underneath the thick fog of emotion?)

"I love you," he murmured back, "I love you I love you I love you—"

[No matter how hard you pray, it won't come true. Faith does not prove anything. A simple stroll in the madhouse will show that.]

The chant sends John over the edge. He feels it. The strange sensation; a burning heat, an atom bomb inside him.  _John_. He pulls out. Remains of their act slide down Sherlock's thigh.

He's too tired to grimace.

He passes out from exhaustion shortly after that.

.

.

Sherlock awakens. He sits up, strangely cold. The space beside him is empty. There lies a phone there. He looks around.

And suddenly—

(it hits him too hard, too fast, too horrible to  _breathe_ )

He knows.

Sherlock wraps his arms around his head and cries.


	11. undergang

_"If you think this has a happy ending_ ,  _you haven't been paying attention_."

— Ramsay Snow, A Song of Ice and Fire

.

.

There is a man, tangled in sheets. And memories, flashing across his mind.

This is what he awakens to:

Someone (not John not John not John) has dragged a mobile TV screen in front of him, video looped. He know what it is before he watches. The bloody abattoir room, the meat hooks, the unrecognizable—somehow still  _screaming_ —person on the floor. The laughter.

 _'Tomorrow,'_  he'd thought while having his brains fucked out,  _'Tomorrow we will catch Moran.'_

[...wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong...]

FLASH.

John reaching up to his neck, bleeding out on the wet pavement. He'd wanted to strangle Sherlock. And Sherlock had selfishly though it'd been because he loved him.

FLASH.

The way he held his coffee cup.

FLASH _._

The way he held himself. Too tense to be natural. As if he needed to be in complete control of his idiosyncrasies, not moving a limb without registration.

FLASH.

The anger, because Sherlock showed up too quickly.  _"You're not supposed to be here."_

FLASH.

The colour of his eyes. Gray, and hatred.

FLASH.

How John said "I love you" like a soldier going off to a war.

FLASH.

He'd removed the bandages right in front of Sherlock. Why didn't Sherlock see who it was? Why didn't his photographic mind compare John to the picture of Sebastian Moran?

(The truth: it didn't because of emotion.)

Hate, love... They both seemed so similar when Sherlock was involved. Was there ever a moment after Sherlock's death that he'd met with John? Sherlock shuts his eyes tightly. His brain is alive again, alive and shrieking, and he cannot delude himself with more lies.

It had been Moran the whole time.

The inside of his thighs are sticky with blood and other fluids and he grimaces, rolls over the bed and pukes.

Sebastian Moran stole John from him. He also stole John's identity, and Sherlock's virginity.

Of all the lies he had created, one is particularly true:

This is all for vengeance.

And then, like always, his cell beeps.

.

.

The park.

John met here with Mike Stamford, long ago. Their meeting ended with the first introduction to Sherlock that'd ensnare him, own him, and ultimately, destroy him.

Darkness consumed the park. Sherlock stepped into it, eyes dry.

The finale.

Sebastian Moran stands there, wearing the skin of his best friend.

Not literally, of course. The face is shrewd and unrecognizable, torn flesh moving and stretching when he speaks. It looks like someone had made a replica of John's face and sewn it on him. Plastic surgery, or rather,  _surgeries_. They must've been taken from a back alley doctor, ending up with a so-and-so result. Half of his face is John like. The other half... grotesque. It is terribly obvious, now.

Mike Stamford upside down hangs from a tree with a cut throat. Red drips to the grass.

The silence is brittle and dry, like it'd snap apart at any moment.

"Hello," the not-John greets.

"Moran."

"Glad you figured it out," Moran says. Sherlock gets the impression of a man of few smiles and words, preferring action to monologues. He is a very loyal soldier. But there is an unhinged madness resting just beneath the surface. It must've taken years to grow it. Moriarty, it seems, cared well for his crops of insanity. "But I'm curious; did you figure it  _all_  out?"

"You planted those bombs. You hired those mercenaries. The phone bombs, too. Everyone who had an involvement in... Moriarty's death. Those who escaped you hunted down and shot. Was John ever...?"

Moran tilts his head to the side. "Those videos I sent you... That was live footage."

 _He's still alive_.

_He has been there the whole time._

Sherlock bristles. "Where is he? Tell me!" And then he realizes it—no matter what he does to Moran, he won't bulge. Without a master, he's rabid. And Moriarty is dead. "...Please."

"Begging, Holmes? Like a dog? Abandoned, starved, kicked. If I slapped you, would you still lick my hand?"

"Just tell me where he is, I'll give you anything."

"I already took it all."

Moran steps forward and strikes Sherlock to the jaw. The detective stumbles backwards. He gets his gun out, pointing it at Moran.

"Stay away."

"Did you like it when I fucked you, Sherlock? Did it secretly thrill you, knowing it was me? Did John's screams evoke no reaction in you?"

The last mention sends him over the edge. Sherlock moves forward like a mad ghost. He uses the butt of his gun to slam Moran's face in, sending the lunatic (though which one of them is most feral, most insane?) backwards. Moran smiles.

He is completing Moriarty's work.

He will stop at nothing to get his finale.

"I'll stop this," Sherlock says, "I'll call the police."

"You don't trust them. Bullies, right? I know so much about you, Holmes. I'd know you'd do anything to get your hands on your precious Dr. Watson, and I know you'd go crazy if you didn't."

The card hidden in his sleeve.

John.

Before Sherlock can demand his whereabouts, Moran continues.

"I watched you open up to me, spilling, finally allowed to drop your walls."

He speaks in a low rasp, and Sherlock wonders how the hell he could've mistaken him for John. It seems surreal, looking back, as if every memory he has is stained with Moran's dark presence.

"I watched you trust me like an abused animal, following me around. I watched you sacrifice everything just to be with me, including yourself, drugging yourself and hating your brother. You are the most intelligent man I've met yet you cannot control your emotions; a little manipulation and a little cosmetic change," he gestures to his scarred features, "and you allow me to fuck you into oblivion. Too bad John is gone. You are alone, Sherlock." His eyes glitter. "You'll always be alone."

The silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot.

There is a hole between Moran's eyes. He falls backwards. His death is very quiet. There is no evidence of his involvement in the bombings, and using Moriarty's connections, he has no doubt deleted himself from the world.

Sherlock's chest rises and falls. Smoke rises from the barrel. The weight of his words pushes Sherlock down into chaos. He is not completely aware of what he just did.

First when his phone—always the phone, always the goddamn phone—rings he snaps out of it. First, there is a message from a secret number. Numbly, he clicks on it.

 _One video,_  the message says,  _for every day in the rest of your life._

It's followed by a video titled  **J_1**

The first one of many. The count will only go up, up, up.

Never again will John see daylight.

He'll never get married.

He'll never have kids.

He'll never go to America.

He'll never learn to play an instrument.

He'll never write a book.

And he will never accompany Sherlock on another case.

Sherlock knows he will go crazy, silently, because he sees the options laid out in front of him. He will chase through the world in look for John, despite its obvious futility. Each video will be a reminder of how he failed to protect the only person who'd ever cared for him. He had betrayed him through other ways, too; he'd fucked the person who'd set up John's torture in the first place.

Sherlock had been  **wrong**.

About everything.

Mycroft was right. He was a mistake, a problem in the world. He, himself, had become wrong.

But for now —

(clutching black curls, kneeling on the sidewalk, covered in blood)

— he'll be nothing but dust.


	12. I was w—

Mycroft sits in his office. For once, it feels too big for him. This day moves too fast and he has been asked to be left alone, apart from occasional secretaries bringing him meals and tea. This case has gotten too personal.

He has not spoken to Sherlock in a long time.

_'It is time,'_  he thinks,  _'to get over it. To talk it out. Maybe he'd understand, for once, understand why I did what I did. Yes. Yes, I must speak to him.'_

With newfound resolve, he remembers John. Mycroft wants to thank him, wherever he is. It is in his power to start a more serious search and he will do so. Perhaps Sherlock would have some more respect for him. Perhaps it will all change.

And then, Mycroft suddenly recognizes the expression on John's face, back at the funeral.

(A tea cup crashed to the ground.)

He'd been grinning, and waving, like a slow goodbye.

And on the coffee table, the phone is ringing.

And ringing.

_And ringing..._

.

.

.

.

_**fin** _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the ultimate revenge. Thanks for reading. If you didn't get the end, it basically says that it's been Moran the entire fucking time. I better go over other questions—
> 
> Q: Is there a bomb planted in Mycroft's phone?  
> A: Yes.
> 
> Q: Where is John?  
> A: Beats me. Underground somewhere, or in an abandoned house. I'd imagine Moran pays monthly from one of his secret bank accounts to keep whoever's keeping John alive happy, even after his death. Think Oh Dae-su from Oldboy. Leaving it up to your imagination. Rape, mutilation, idk. Cut off all limbs and the person can still live.
> 
> Q: Why so many phone calls?  
> A: To put emphasis on the disconnection between these characters, reinforcing the whole you can't trust faces thing.
> 
> Q: Why did you list this as Johnlock?  
> A: Because it is. This is told mainly from Sherlock's POV, and he thinks it's John he's with.
> 
> Q: Was Sherlock in love?  
> A: This is up to a subjective analysis. However, I personally see Sherlock as an asexual who is manipulated to think he's in love, simply because of his lack of experience with emotion. Mostly slash operates with "love underneath the disguise of hate" — while in this fic it's "hate underneath the disguise of love". Both are intense and passionate.
> 
> Q: Sequel?  
> A: No. Might do a prequel exploring what made Moran so fucked up in the first place.


End file.
